Democrats grapple with Trump, democracy and an argument that didn’t work

Democrats say they are wary of the D-word.

On the heels of a grueling loss in the presidential election in November, Democrats find themselves grappling with how and when to warn the public about the threat President Trump poses to democracy.

It is a narrative Democrats sought to push hard during the 2024 election as everyone from Joe Biden to Kamala Harris and Barack Obama warned of the danger Trump posed to the nation's framework.

But in the months since their election loss, party operatives have largely concluded that those efforts failed. And it did little to convince wide swaths of voters that Trump was the menace Democrats portrayed him to be.

“The problem with that message is that the people who were motivated by that, we've already got,” Democratic strategist Joel Payne said. “It has a limited ceiling on it in terms of a growth message.”

Now, as Democrats watch Trump reshape the government and change the traditional ways Washington works, party operatives have been hesitant to frame the argument simply around “democracy.”

That is the case even after Friday, when many Democrats were shocked by the Oval Office shouting match involving Trump, VicePresident Vance and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky.

A number of Democrats viewed that blowup as a U.S. president siding with an autocrat in Russian President Vladimir Putin over an advocate for democracy in Zelensky. Still, they think any political message centered on Trump’s threat to democracy as needing to be reshaped, if it’s used at all.

In an interview on MSNBC this week, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker underscored the predicament Democrats find themselves in: how to call out Trump on his unprecedented actions.

“The things I’m speaking out about now, about, you know, the threat to our democracy, this is not a message to win elections on, it’s something people need to know,” Pritzker told MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace on “Deadline: White House." “They need to know that that’s what’s happening.”

But Pritzker, like other Democrats, said they simply can’t say Trump is tearing down democracy without providing specific examples about what they mean.

“The reality is, what people need to hear about is what the effects of that are,” he said. “The prices at the grocery store are going up because democracy is being taken away, the impact on you in terms of your health care, 770,000 people in Illinois will lose health care as a result of what Donald Trump and Elon Musk and the Republican Congress are doing right now.”

Democratic strategist Christy Setzer backed that sentiment, saying “Democrats have to communicate that it really just means a loss of control” in their messaging to the public.

“Your vote doesn’t matter. Your government makes every decision for you. Your job is to line Donald Trump’s and Elon Musk’s pockets, and you get nothing in return,” Setzer said of how Democrats should drive the narrative on democracy.

At the same time, Republican strategist Doug Heye — who does not support Trump — said Democrats should avoid even the most nuanced explanations on the topic.

“Democrats should have learned the lesson that voters sent them, which is that it is not a winning issue to campaign on,” Heye said. “So it’s not about fine-tuning the messaging on that, it’s about talking to voters about the things that they are saying very loudly that they care the most about.”

The real test to date for Democrats will be if Trump defies the courts, political observers say.

Susan Del Percio, the veteran Republican strategist who also does not support Trump, said while the pillars “are certainly cracked,” a break-the-glass, call to action moment hasn’t happened.

“People think of our democracy as elections, they think of three branches of government. That’s really what it comes down to for a lot of people,” Del Percio said. “But if Trump goes against the Supreme Court, then we have thrown out the rule of law which is the true foundation of our country.”

The mere threat of it, she added, “doesn’t land that punch.”

Democratic strategist Anthony Coley disagreed, saying Democrats should seize the moment and talk about how Trump is upsetting the norms in the early days of his presidency.

“That helps lay the predicate for the downstream impact of all his unforced errors down the road,” Coley said. “There’s going to be a moment when people come to their senses, when they realize that what he’s doing is not what they bargained for.”

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